Pandoro

To make it real I need to get my hands and mouth on a large piece of Pandoro, a sweet Italian cake sprinkled with sugar. My mom brings it over from Italy, when she visits us for the holidays, and I love to have it Christmas morning.

Pandoro reminds me of Italy — the smell and feel of it brings me back to Rome. As a girl, I often tried to steal a piece before the holidays – and whenever I succeeded I shared it with my sister in the bedroom we shared. The holidays were so much fun with my crazy and loud Italian family.

Since getting married to my military Ninja – Christmas has been different. We traveled around small towns with many little kids (me having just given birth to four of them a few days before the holidays) and sometimes my husband had to deploy which always made it particularly tough.

But this year things seem to work fine. I have my Pandoro — I feel light and happy, for a change. I am enjoying my children, their little faces, their hair (brush them, brush them, and put sparkly stuff on them) and their soft buttery skin. I love to feel them close to me.

It’s great to write a post that’s happy and not to look at some of the negative stuff out there or the things that I have to work on or do better …

For today and hopefully many days to come, it’s just me and the girls and my husband and my mom and we feel good. We are OK. We are happy. And for that I am so thankful….